How Does the Weather Effect Our Blueberries?

We get a lot of questions around here asking if our blueberries survived late spring frosts. It’s a common question, and makes total sense to be curious!

So let’s chat about it!

How does the weather effect fruit?
The biggest factor here is the flower. All fruit starts off as a delicate flower. All of our berries flower in the spring as soon as the weather is consistently warm.
Here in Ohio, we are quite known for having a warmer spring earlier in April, and then a random frost in early May some time - and that’s usually when the problems arise.

Once a bush or tree flowers, if a frost hits, it can be very damaging. If you lose the flower, you lose the fruit. So since most farms who grow strawberries begin harvesting in may, and also since strawberries continuously produce flowers all season, they are extremely susceptible to frost damage.

How are our blueberries different?
Our bushes are somewhat of a later variety. Most varieties are ready in June/early July. The varieties we grow here at Berryhill are supposed to be early July through Mid August. The early warm springs that we’ve been having can and do effect that, because they will then flower and ripen earlier..

However, blueberries all flower at the same time, and then set fruit right after. All of the fruit that’s set, is all it will produce in a season. Unlike strawberries (or even something like zucchini), they do not keep producing flowers/fruit all season.

You can see above all the clusters of flowers come out at once. Each of those will turn into a berry and that’s it for the year!

So, if the fruit is set and we get a frost, it usually won’t do any damage. Our flowers are typically done and gone by the time we get that late frost in May. Thankfully! Once they look like this, they are fine.

Now, as I mentioned earlier we have been getting extremely warm springs here in Ohio which makes everything come to life earlier! Normally I find that to be a great thing!
But, it makes our season shift a bit, which can be confusing. What is normally our opening day (July 4th) very well may be our closing day this year.

And it’s all because of such a warm March and April! I feel as though the seasons are shifting and spring is warming up earlier than usual these past few years.

If it tells you anything….like I said July 4th is our normal opening day of upick. This year (2026) we opened our first upick on June 13th! Kinda crazy.

Nonetheless, we are thankful to have delicious blueberries for our customers and welcome the earlier upick before it gets super hot.

And don’t worry, if you’re used to coming on July 4th, we are still planning an amazing day!

America turns 250 years old so we will have blueberry picking, donuts for the first 250 people in line, and lots of vendors.

We will also sing the National Anthem as a group before we open the nets for picking. It’s our favorite day of the summer and it’s all because of our amazing customers like you! So plan to be here :)

I hope this helps answer some questions about the frost, and why our berries are extra early this year.

And if you’ve read this far, take a look at this throwback photo of the berry fields in 2015. These are the same bushes you all were picking on this morning! Our plants are now around 25 years old.

Look at all that bending down we no longer have to do ;)

Sarah & Chris

2025 Year in Review (And 2026 Goals)

I am actually glad to be closing the chapter to the 2025 year.

While it wasn’t our best year ever, I’m not mad about how much it taught us. We were actually able to learn several valuable lessons during our hardships in 2025, and moving ahead into this new year, we are looking at things quite differently.

We had tremendous loss in 2025 - losing 4 or 5 cows to illness (I lost count after the 3rd), having 3 escape that cost us well over $1k in expenses to get back (including hiring a couple cowboys to catch and retrieve), losing several hens to predators, which led us to getting rid of our entire laying flock, losing 300 meat birds in one night to a catastrophic event, losing another close to 100 meat birds another night, losing almost all of our quail & pheasants another night.. It just wasn’t our best year for animals. Lots of lessons learned!

Sometimes farming can really make us question.
Questioning things like are we really meant to do this? Are we doing too much? Not enough? Not the right niche? Is this too much for us to manage? Do we really have the time to do this?

All of these are questions we need to ponder & consider.
I think one of the reasons I really covet our customers feedback is so we know with certainty we are doing the right thing. This is the main reason we quit doing CSA boxes a few years ago, and pivoted to just berries & beef. That led us to doing more pastured chicken & turkey as well. There is more demand, and we couldn’t ignore that!

So one of our goals looking into 2026 is to increase our time management skills. The goal is to work smarter, not harder.

We are aiming to increase our pastured chicken sales, continue on with grass-fed beef and pork, and replant our beloved raspberries like we had been hoping to do the past 4-5 years.

These things can only succeed if we have the customer base to purchase. And only time will tell if that’s the case.

Our goal is to scale back the amount of different animals we raised last year, and focus on the ones that do really well here at our farm. We also have a big goal of adding more videos to our YouTube channel. Make sure you’re subscribed over there so you don’t miss any updates! I also have a dairy cow who is likely due to calf in April or early May. So adding the chore of milking daily & dealing with lots of raw milk is on the list to learn!

We will soon be opening up deposits for beef, whole chickens, and pork. Purchasing in bulk from your local farmer supports and strengthens the whole community. Your support literally puts food on our table & yours. And we value you.

We are hoping 2026 is the year we “figure things out” and see what really does well here at Berryhill, and devote our time & best attention at doing those things well.

All of us are so incredibly thankful for your continued support in 2025. Every purchase, share, comment, subscription, like, engagement, and the telling of a friend brings support to our business and we wouldn’t be able to continue without you.

We love our community and love what we do. Here’s to hoping we do it even better in 2026. Serving you all is at the top of our list and we cannot wait for a new year of growth, realignment, & success.

The top of our list:
Plant raspberries.
Get cows.
Order 300 meat chicks.
Get 3 more hogs.
Streamline meat cut sales.
Countdown to blueberries!

Happy 2026! Praying it’s your best year yet! And ours too.

Chris & Sarah

Crockpot Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

Soups are a staple around here, and if I can find a way to utilize my crockpot this time of year, I absolutely do. I knew I’d want a slow cooker for this recipe, because it uses wild rice which can be a bit tricky to get right. You have to allow this recipe to slow cook for a good 8-10 hours for the rice to be perfect.

Chicken & Wild Rice Soup

Ingredients:
3 boneless chicken breasts
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups chopped carrots
1 cup diced onion
2 TBS garlic powder
1 TBS Italian seasoning (from azure standard is the best!)
4 quarts chicken bone broth
1.5 cups wild rice (Fundberg brand recommended)

Instructions:
Dump all ingredients into crockpot and cook on low for at least 8 hours. I like to taste it after about 7-8 hours and see how the rice is. The soup is done and ready to serve once the rice is tender.
Take the chicken out and shred it, adding it back to the crockpot right away. Let finish slow cooking until rice is ready.

Salt & pepper the soup to taste. I don’t include this in the recipe list because its completely preferential. If your bone broth is salty, adjust accordingly. If you’re unsure, start with 2 teaspoons when adding all ingredients to the crockpot.

This recipe serves a crowd. It will fill the standard size crockpot. Feel free to split the recipe in half if you are a smaller family of 4 or so, or just freeze the leftovers, OR have lunch prepped all week haha.

I like to garnish with parsley flakes and serve with sourdough bread.

Enjoy!

30 Minute Cheeseburger Soup

We are a family that loves cheeseburgers. We rotate between grilled burgers in the summer, but in the winter we absolutely love this Cheeseburger soup. It’s a rotation we eat often, and I’m sure your family will love it too!

2 pounds ground beef
1 cup onion, diced
2 TBS garlic powder
1-2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 TBS Italian seasoning
1/2 cup flour
2 quarts bone broth
2 cups diced potatoes
1 can diced tomatoes or Rotel
1 cup cream or half & half
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Optional toppings: diced pickles, sourdough croutons, crispy onions, bacon bits, shredded cheddar

Instructions:
Start by browning the ground meat along with the diced onion. While this is browning, add your garlic powder, italian seasoning, salt & pepper.
Once the meat is brown, sprinkle evenly with flour. Stir to coat all of the meat with the flour and cook for 2-3 minutes. This will start to look thick and dry - thats ok!
After 2-3 minutes, add the milk. Stir, and you will start to see the meat mixture become creamy. Slowly add the bone broth, stirring continuously until the mixture becomes more of a creamy soup consistency.
Next, add your diced potatoes & tomatoes and simmer until the potatoes are soft. If you dice your potatoes small enough (I do about half an inch) they will cook pretty fast.
Finally, once the potatoes are soft, turn off the heat. Add your cheddar cheese and sir until melted in.

Serve with classic cheeseburger toppings!
This recipe is very adaptable. If you’d rather leave out the tomatoes, you can, and simply make that a topping instead. If you don’t want to add the potatoes, that’s fine too! Serve with sourdough bread instead. You can also use any broth and any milk alternative. The most important part is creating the roux by adding flour to the meat, cooking it, and then adding a liquid to make it creamy.

You can also substitute the flour for a gluten free 1:1 all purpose flour.

Enjoy!